VSU Coach Lonnie Blow scores 100th CIAA victory
12/25/2015, 1:38 a.m.
Basketball Coach Lonnie Blow Jr. arrived at Virginia State University with a reputation for success, and he hasn’t disappointed.
The veteran coach picked up his 100th CIAA victory Dec. 15 when the Trojans defeated his former school, St. Augustine’s University, 86-63, in Raleigh, N.C.
In his third coaching season at VSU, Coach Blow improved to 38-23 (6-2 for the season as of Dec. 15) after going 62-27 in two stints at St. Augustine’s.
Overall, he is 100-50 in the CIAA.
Previously, Coach Blow served as an assistant at Division I Norfolk State University and Old Dominion University and coached about 15 years in his native Hampton Roads at Maury and Granby high schools in Norfolk.
His 2000 Granby High School squad won the State Group AAA championship.
The CIAA coach with the most career wins is the late Clarence “Big House” Gaines, who posted a 828-447 mark at Winston-Salem State University between 1946 and 1993.
At Virginia Union University, Dave Robbins was 713-194 between 1978 and 2008.
The only other CIAA coaches reaching the 500-win milestone are Steven Joyner, who hit the half-century mark earlier this season at Johnson C. Smith University, and the late Bobby Vaughan, 502-301 at Elizabeth City State University from 1949 to 1986.
Joyner also had 82 victories as Johnson C. Smith’s women’s basketball coach before switching to coach the men’s team. Joyner was an assistant at Virginia Union University in the 1970s under the late Robert Moore.
